Thunder, Tag, and other Trifles.

"Truth is more important than modesty"
- Roald Dahl, Boy

         (Kintai  Bridge at Iwankuni)

Today I had a trifle. It made me think of Anna and Jill. We talked about Trifles once, and had to look it up in both the dictionary and Wikipedia. None of us had ever had it, at least, not under that name. But Coffee Jelly, That's the most grown-up dessert I've ever eaten, I think, for it is so rich and sweet. It oozed indulgence. A layer of coffee flavored cream sandwiched between two layers of coffee jell-o (only, you can't think of it as jell-o, that sounds so unsophisticated). If I ever wished to convince somebody of my level-headed maturity this is the dessert I would try to recreate.
But the coffee jelly was on Thursday, on Tuesday and Wednesday I was as far from sophisticated as you could get. I was at Ube's kids camp, and I was running around playing tag, trying to get those kids tired. I never did manage it, but the Ube leaders were able to teach them the precious "basics" of faith. They used the wordless book to explain heaven, hell, sin, the crucifixion, and living your life for God. Of course, it was all in Japanese.
This Sunday I move back in with the Tootheys after two weeks of living worth the Ricers. It's been a lot of fun here. I've even been able to do a little side reading: Stepping Heavenward, Boy, A Bride Goes West, and various comic books. My reading isn't over yet, as one of the Purewells students - the Purewells are the missionaries I'll be staying with when I move to Ube in September - on hearing that I like reading lent me a copy of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. I was struggling through the first chapter, feeling like a row boat during a heavy fog, when my education finally jumped in. "This is what they call stream-of-consciousness, and Mrs. Woolf is known for it." Well, after that it was slightly easier to read, but I still think it'll have to be taken in small doses. Reading someone else's scattered thoughts seems to distort my own thinking patterns.
My reading will definitely have to take a back seat when I move back to the Tootheys', for English classes start up again this Tuesday. I'm only to teach one this week, but next week I'll be teaching two, and I will continue teaching these two even when I move to Ube. Life has often been compared to a river, the way it flows continually. It has fast spots, where the rocks jut up like daggers, and the slow times, when it barely seems to move at all, but it never stops completely. It's been raining so much these past few weeks that my life sure feels like a river, damp and cool. Perfect Reading Weather.




Oh, By the Way: If you are one of those people who have seen You've Got Mail, and if you've spent countless hours wondering just what book Meg Ryan is reading those children in the fatal first (physical) meeting of the two destined lovers, wonder no more. It is, with out a doubt, Boy. And no, I didn't notice that all by myself.

Really Hard Trouble

This week has been devoted to Japanese study, so writing has taken a backseat once again. Please enjoy this excerpt..........

                                     FROM THE DESK OF MRS. BUNBERRY

Friday, July 18th

My sister likes languages. When I'm struggling for a word I'm more likely to shoot her an email than to open up a Thesaurus. Back at home, just before I left for this trip, we were talking. Random stuff probably, but during the conversation she said this phrase "really hard trouble." Of course, I teased her about it for as long as I could. "Don't you mean 'difficult'?" I asked. Words are funny like that, I guess. Like, if I said that Monday, July 14th, was a difficult day, what would that mean to you? Or if I said that it was a little sad, or kind of depressing, would that preclude me from saying I enjoyed it? From saying "it was a good day, I had a nice time"? 

Well, Monday was a hard day. And it was a good day too. We went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and spent around three hours in the museum. It was awful, but it was also, in a sense, inspiring. 8:15. Time takes on a new meaning..... 

But one can't really talk about something like that, not for long. That Thursday we went to Iwakuni and were shown around the Marine base. We ate off base, though, passing up taco bell, pizza hut, and Baskin Robins for a little curry restaurant known as Cocos. It was spicy good. Rice, gravy, okra, eggplant, and chicken. All eaten with torn off pieces of nan. And of course we went shopping too. We even saw some guys breakneck dancing.

          Next week We go on our first homestays, and teach at Hiraoi and Nijigaoka for the last time. We've only two more weeks before Friendship English Camp (FEC) starts, but we're sure the time will go quickly. 

 

      

New Chapters

The summer term is ending. Home stays, cultural outings, camp, the never ending fun of Miss. A and Miss. J - those things are over now. Sunday I go to stay at the Ricers, where I will study Japanese diligently. Until then I must clean, clean, clean. But that's boring stuff, lets talk about camp. 

                FEC - Friendship English Camp. The five classes we offered, the games we played, the friends we made, perhaps to never see again - they were all for the sake of the Gospel. Every night we had an hour of Bible talk, in Japanese of course. We talked about how sin binds one like rope. We talked about how all our goals were like nothing unless we followed Christ. The kids heard the truth preached and now we must trust God to produce their faith. 

"For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the Earth, and make it bring forth and bud... so shall My word be that goes forth from my mouth; It shall not return to me void."

– Isaiah 55:10-11

To give you a picture of camp, let me describe Wednesday, the day of the water games. In the morning we wake up and have devotions before going to the camps flag raising, where we partake in the Japanese practice of morning exercises (more helpfully described by a youtube video). We break our fast with rice, salad, and whatever else the cafeteria has decided to provide, and then we get start on our English classes. There's a lunch break in between them, and an hour of hilarious bilingual skits, and then we get down to the real business. Games with Mr. Ricer. 

Today the games take place in a big field. A big field marked with plastic tape and containing two big troughs of water and a hundred sponges. We played three entirely different games, but they all involved sponges flying through the air, seeking a target. Needless to say, at the end of two hours we were all completely soaked. By the time we had changed clothes, lowered the flags, and sated our hunger we were ready to sit down and listen to one of the pastors talk about running the race of life. 

One hour later and we are once again hopping, literally. Mr. Ricer fills a soda bottle with water, ties it to a length of rope, and spins it in a circle. Then we, the kids and helpers, stand in a circle and jump over it, allowing it to whizz under our feet. If we don't jump fast enough, or high enough, the rope hit our legs, causing the bottle to wrap them. I've never seen such great vertical jumps.

Now we are all sore and tired. There's a general rush to the ofuro (Japanese bath), and half the cabin gets out the uno cards. The day has been long, but even though we are all half asleep we know don't want tomorrow to come. For tomorrow is Thursday, and on Thursday we all go home. 

Goodbye Miss. A! Goodbye Miss. J! Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye! May God continue to be you northern star, leading to your heavenly home. 

  

And then someone added one more vote to break the tie. So people it will be. This post is a little different, kind of an experiment if you will. It has almost no pictures, and very little to do with ministry, but it is about the missionaries who I have come to know and, in an odd way, love.  

Mr. and Mrs. Ricer go to the beach

Mr. Ricer loves to cook. He bakes, stirs, and BBQs. Mrs. Ricer loves to cook too. When the short-termers come over to her house on Friday nights she might be found in the kitchen making stovetop popcorn with olive oil. But the first Friday of July couldn't be celebrated indoors. Not by Americans. Not when the sun had decided to shine so brightly and there was a beach within driving distance. So Mr. and Mrs. Ricer picked the three girls up from the Toothy's. "Don't you want to come with us?" They asked Mr. and Mrs. Toothy. But Mr. and Mrs. Toothy just smiled and waved. Friday evenings were their date night.
Miss A, Miss I, and Mrs, B tumbled into the back seat of the Ricer's white car. "Do you know why we brought you with us?" asked Mr. Ricer from the front seat. Mr. Ricer loved to say funny things, and when he did his voice became teasing. His voice was teasing now. "We brought you to be our pack mules. Someone has to carry all the food down to the beach." The girls groaned, but they were smiling too.
"Of course, then we'd have to call you all Jenny." Mrs. Ricer commented.
"Do you know why?" Mr Ricer asked the girls.
Mrs. B hadn't the foggiest clue why they'd have to change names in order to be a pack mule. She thought it must be something like Mr. Toothy's Greece joke. But Miss I, who could talk for hours on how a chicken 'dropped' eggs, responded immediately. "Because most female Mules are called Jenny." She said, adding more information about Mules and Mollys than Mrs. B could ever have guessed. Mr Ricer had to admit she was right. By this time the white car had made it's way to the beach, and the girls found out that Mr. Ricer was only half joking about their being pack mules. Loaded down with everything from beach chairs to bug repellant the girls walked with the Ricers down to the beach and set up "camp."
Mr. Ricer had to start the coals before any cooking could be done. The girls took this as an opportunity to walk along the shore. Peals of laughter floated back up to the Ricers, for Miss I and Miss A were a continual source of amusement to Mrs. B and joined in the laughter with their own unique chimes.


"Cuuuutte" Gushed Miss A, as she bent over a crack in the rock. Mrs. B was too used to Miss A's brand of gushing to come rushing over to take a peek, but she did spare a glance over her shoulder. It was enough, the two girls were bent over one of the funny little creatures that clung firmly to the giant rocks jagged surface. Miss A's finger was hovering over the thing, and Mrs. B surmised that she had just poked it. Turning to a her own nearby creature, she gave it a little poke and watched, amused, as it squished up its "face." Then she had to scramble to catch up to the other girls, who were already wading back to the shore, picking up sand dollars as they went. They would take them home later and dry them out on the balcony.
"I've got a third-world hunger going on here." Miss I groaned, in what Mrs. B could only surmise was an imitation of one of her friend's accents. Miss I and Miss A both seemed to have an inordinate number of friends from other countries, and it was their habit to adopt either a foreign accent or a creative interpretation of grammar while conversing. Mrs. B and Miss A were not going to argue with hunger, it was one topic that all three girls could sympathize with. The walk back up to the grill was immediately started and soon they were close enough for Mr. Ricer to gripe about how much coal he'd burned waiting for them. "We were about to start without you." He chided, but in his teasing voice. "Everybody, grab a bowl and some hashi, and lets get grilling our yakiniku." Mrs. Ricer commanded. The girls obediently picked up a plastic bowl and a pair of chopsticks and gathered around the low rectangular grill. They weren't really sure what yakiniku was, but they were sure to find out if they followed orders fast enough. Yakiniku, it turned out, was a little like a game of hot potato, with some parts of it resembling a food fight, and a few allusions to egg racing thrown in for good measure. The goal was to get perfectly grilled food off the grill, into your sauce bowl, and down your hatch before the rest of the food had shriveled into charred lumps. The real challenge was that Mr. Ricer insisted on putting more stuff on the grill before everyone was ready for it.
"Let us eat what's on it first." Mrs. B grumbled, flustered by the heat of the grill and the insistent popping of burning beef. "You've got to eat faster," Mr. Ricer replied; "Look, thats another burnt carrot."
Mrs. Ricer reached in with her chopsticks and grabbed the vegetable, letting it fall safely on to Miss A's plate. Miss A already had quite a few such 'gifts' from Mrs. Ricer, but she had been given the job of meat girl, and that, with the already heavy responsibility of eating, made her a little inattentive to her plate. Though she did notice when Mrs. Ricer plopped small hot dog on it.
"Eeahyeawv" Miss A moaned, softly. "I don't like hot dogs."
Mr. and Mrs. Ricer both stared at her, and then burst out laughing. It wasn't so much the idea that she didn't like hot dogs that tickled them, it was more her gentle whine and disgusted expression that set them to chuckling. Of course, being yakiniku pros, they were not distracted from their duty for an instant. They were plenty capable of teasing and cooking. Finally the fight with the flames was over and every last piece of food had been eaten, or else thrown into the sand as a solid lump of black. Then it was time to drag out the blanket and start preparing for the fireworks. That meant bug spray and and a few stories. Missionaries love to tell stories. They told stories of wild boar sightings ("And a big inushishi was right there in the middle of the road!"), they told stories of language goofs ("'buchi' is Yamaguchi slang for 'very', 'bochi' means 'grave.' I looked at her and said 'bochi delicious.'"), and they told stories about their life before coming to Japan ("I thought to myself, 'He looks nice, but he's really poorly dressed.' A few years later we were married.'"*). Soon the mountains were hardly visible against the night sky. Mr. Ricer proceeded to get out the fireworks. He let each of the girls take turns lighting them. There was smoke, bright lights, and shrieks of terror. Misses I and A, to the amusement of the unbelieving Ricers, insisted that there was someone out in the darkness spying on them. But then, quite suddenly, a new noise came from behind. Someone was in the tall beach bushes just as Miss I had claimed, and he was shooting fireworks at them! Mr. Ricer, ever practical, continued with his own light display, but Miss I and Miss A screamed with every mysterious bang that erupted from the darkness of the trees. After awhile the screams lessened, even though the intruder's sparks were getting closer and closer. Someone got ahold of the flashlight and shone it into the bushes. Mrs. B could hardly believe her eyes, it was Mr. Toothy! Exposed, he walked unashamedly towards the blanket. Mrs. Toothy showed up seconds later.
"It was his idea. I just watched." She explained, with her inscrutable grin.
"Mr. Toothy," Mrs. B solemnly stated, "You have forever changed my opinion of missionaries."
And with that the whole group gathered together under the starry ocean sky. A team handpicked by God, if only for a short while.



*It's a field requirement for all missionaries to be romantic. Even "retired" missionaries can not find a cure, but are always happy to tell the "how we met and fell in love" story to anyone who asks. Most couples, like the Ricers, have told it so many times that they've managed to get the story straight, right down to who was poorly dressed.